Discussion and conclusion

In summary, we find that one of the key features of the dynamics of the COVID-19 epidemic in Hubei Province but also in all other provinces is the robust subexponential rise in the number of confirmed cases according to a scaling law during the transient episode of the epidemic before assuming saturating behavior. This general shape of growth suggests that fundamental principles are at work associated with this particular outbreak that are dominated by the interplay of the contagion process with endogenous behavioral changes in the susceptible population and external containment policies. While the explicit shape of the growth curves discussed here can be influenced by factors such as seasonal effects, systematic delay in reporting, or heterogeneities in demographic structure and population mixing, the fact that total case numbers eventually reached a stable value suggests that containment strategies that shielded the susceptible population from the transmission process were rather effective—compared to potential case numbers of an unmitigated outbreak, only a small fraction of the Chinese population that was at risk has been infected up to date (Mar. 29th). Nevertheless, we cannot rule out that other factors contributed to the growth behavior displayed in the data that was collected in a short amount of time during a tense situation.